


Dark on me

by Valpur



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Major Character "Death", Mass Effect 3, Of course it's not really sad, Sad Ending, and her crew finds her, and she lives happily ever after with that broody turian, we all know that Shepard IS ALIVE AND WELL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 09:32:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16134503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valpur/pseuds/Valpur
Summary: “I never promise if I’m not sure I can keep my word, so don’t expect me to say that I’ll come back to you safe and sound in the end. It’s not for me to say”.“No, you’re right, Shepard. But what about we promise each other to be together until the end of the line?”





	Dark on me

The mere concept of night and day is optional on the Normandy.

Sleep cycles are determined by a software (like mostly anything on the ship), and looking out of the windows only shows dark skies and endless stars.

Not a bad landscape at all, though, and Garrus is pretty sure the whole crew is asleep by now. 

Well, not exactly everyone. The lounge is bathed in soft lights, and soft is the music coming from the amps hidden behind the walls.

Shepard, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist, is twice as soft. It is something he’s started to realize in the last weeks – she can be frail, even if she’s good at hiding it. What drew him to her in the first place was her aura of steely determination, and to be honest commander Shepard really is the toughest badass in the entire galaxy and some more. 

But now, as he looks down at the smooth hair tickling his neck, he can only think she’s adorable.

_And mine. Guess I, too, deserve some luck every now and then._

He caresses her back and chuckles quietly, content with this handful of minutes snatched from the Armageddon.

The quiver in his chest makes Shepard take a step back and tilt her head to stare at him.

“You’re not about to laugh at my dancing skills, are you?”

“Who, me? Do I look like someone who could mock my commander because she has the coordination of a drunk elcor?”

“Let me think about it – yes, yes you do”. 

She grins and sways a bit, more or less following the rhythm of the music.

Mostly less.

“You’re getting better, Shepard. I like to claim some merit for it, at least now you’ve stopped trying to murder my toes whenever music happens”.

“But I like to dance!”

“Yeah, that’s the problem”, and before she can add something else, he stoops to kiss her. It never ceases to amaze him – soft lips against his mouth, and his shell becomes just something else his woman is fond of. She seems to melt in his arms, her fingers crawling up his cheek to caress the scars on his face. 

He can’t stop his jaw plates to quiver in appreciation.

She’s beautiful. Not just for a human, even if he’s had confirmation that she fits pretty well the standards of her race (a bit on the short side, maybe), but her green eyes are carved forever in his heart, and the way her smile starts at the corner of her mouth and then spreads to her whole being is always like watching the sun rise for the first time.

He easily gets lost when he kisses her, and looking at her beloved face is not easier. 

That’s why, when something white flashes behind Shepard’s head, it takes him a while to blink and lift his head. So much for his fabled killer reflexes.

“Garrus?”

“Look”, he whispers, still so close their breaths flow as one. “Falling stars”.

Shepard doesn’t leave him. She just turns in his embrace to admire the rain of sparkles among the nebulae.

“I think they are just bits of shattered satellites catching fire while…”

“Shepard. Please, I’m trying to be smooth here, humor me”, he grins against her cheek, and Shepard laughs in silence, turning to face the window and taking his hands, crossed on her stomach.

“Alright, alright, they’re _pretty_. Meteors, debris, whatever – they’re shiny, and I like them”.

Garrus cocks his head to kiss her temple.

“Weren’t you telling me, once, that when humans see a falling star they make a wish?”

Shepard seems to go colder against his chest. She abandons the window and looks down at her feet, suddenly serious.

“We do, but… the whole process loses a bit of its appeal when I’m the only one who can make that wish come true, and it requires destroying the Reapers, so…”

“Hey, hey… come here, it’s fine. I didn’t want to spoil our moment…”

“You didn’t, Garrus”. The smile is back on her face, the sweet, sad smile only he has the privilege to see. “But you have no idea how much I’d like to believe that wishes do come true”.

Garrus sighs and takes her chin in his hand, lifting her head up and brushing back a loose black strand from her forehead.

“Let’s make it something easier, then. Something we have the power to make happen. What about a promise?”

She arches her eyebrows, and a sarcastic light sparkles in her eyes.

“I never promise if I’m not sure I can keep my word, so don’t expect me to say that I’ll come back to you safe and sound in the end. It’s not for me to say”.

“No, you’re right. But what about we promise each other to be together until the end of the line?”

Shepard nods and throws her arms around his torso. She has to stand on the tip of her toes to kiss him again, and Garrus has to bend over her. He likes it.

“Ok”, she says, her lips gentle on his mouth. “I promise”. 

 

 

 

The world – every world he’s ever known – is torn apart. 

Explosions shatter the land, guns are firing everywhere. His head buzzes with shock, trauma and the purest form of rage he’s ever felt.

“I will always love you”.

Shepard’s words ring in his brain, in his heart, in whatever is that thing humans call soul. They fill him to the brim with pictures of her last smile, the most perfect smile in a face covered in blood, drawn with exhaustion.

It takes three people to pull him on the shuttle, and Javik receives an elbow right in his face that makes him curse in a dead language and stumble back. Vega is screaming something, his hands crushing his shoulders, sinking into the wounds that riddle his body. 

Garrus would scream in pain, but pain is so far from his sensations he doesn’t really feel it.

“ _Open this fucking door_!” he cries out, throat hoarse with tension and despair.

“Garrus, stop it!”

It’s Kaidan this time, his face streaked with soot and tears. He’s trying to push him back, to convince him to sit down – to save his life, to do as Shepard told him.

Shepard.

Alone in the battlefield, beyond that damned layer of metal, behind the floor jumping with every turn Cortez takes to keep them all safe.

His commander.

 _His love_.

He can’t let go. It’s too much, it hurts and it destroys something inside him. He knows he’ll never be whole again unless he tears the door apart and jumps down to fight the last battle at her side.

To _die_ at her side.

“Shepard!” he screams again. His vision is blurring, and the conjoined efforts of the two men dragging him back are starting to work. 

Dizzy, nauseated, he almost falls back.

Blood on his tongue. Blood running under his armor, down his face, down his legs.

“You promised!”

“Come on, man, you’re not making this easier!” Vega lets go of any finesse and takes him by the plate behind his neck. A pull, a shove, and Garrus falls on the metal floor in a tangle of limbs, anger, and tears he doesn’t realize he’s shedding.

“She’ll be alright, if we…”

“For fuck’s sake, Alenko, don’t lie to him!”, Vega interrupts him. “She’s doing her job. She’s a hero, and heroes don’t die of old age in their bed!”

James is crying too, ragged sobs that shake his thick frame.

Garrus is beyond words, lost somewhere in a land of dead stars that fall from a weeping sky in comets of fire.

His hands, empty and sore, claw at the grid under his knees. 

His rifle’s gone.

Shepard is gone.

He’s done fighting.

“You promised…” he whispers again. 

With the last of his energies he looks up to the windows.

Fires are everywhere, smoke cut by the crude light of lasers. Beyond that, the stars, cold and indifferent.

A black veil falls upon his eyes and he collapses on the side.

The world has never been darker.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my Tumblr for a while now, and since I'm replaying the trilogy I thought I could put it here too.  
> Garrus is love, Garrus is life, and he and Shepard deserved better.
> 
> The title comes from one of my favorite Starset songs, I recommend you listen to it while reading.
> 
> Enjoy and sorry for the angst! :3


End file.
